was blown into existence. Whether by a "bottle conjuror," or not, it is unne. NARRATION OF A PINT BOTTLE. cessary to say. But it is pretty clear For the Olio. I could tell many a tale Since first I had my birth: Ir was not always my lot to be a body without a spirit; and though I am now thrown aside as useless, I may, in some hereafter state, be resuscitated, and pass through an ordeal of usefulness, subservient to generations that will succeed those which are, like shadows, passing away. Without arrogating to myself a singular presumption in narrating parts of my history, and without violating the rules of necrological talebearers, I select those portions only which I consider will justify my appearance, since I confidently assert, that I have been held up to many a friendly notice for a sight of the "bee's wing," with unusual pleasure. If I may claim the privilege of having a poetical taste, I might say, that, like a flower, I VOL. VIII. G that, even in my earliest transitions, I partook something of the nature of a "bottle imp;" and I was, therefore, removed from the glass-house in which I first obtained an embryo, and destined, like Hamlet's ghost, for a term," to make my appearance in the character of a slender Pint,-empty as a vapour, possessing rather a long neck, a thick bottom, and an unalterable strait stomach, capable of retaining many "drops of comfort" in measurable liquid. The first moist element I tasted was water,fire, air and earth I had passed through. Others, it might be anticipated, of the same family were united in common fellowship with me on my first adventure from the glass-house to the wine cellar; but let them speak for themselves, if so disposed, inasmuch as their experience differs from mine. I dictate only in the first person singular, and hope to avoid any reflections having a tendency to bring me, or my contemporaneous associates into disrepute. 203 By the busy hum of "wine! wine! wine!" I discovered that I was intended to be bottled off, filled, corked down, and laid on side in silent, cool and dark pressure, choked up to my neck, with a dash of whitening on my breast, and placed in a layer of sawdust in a darksome bin. Oh! what a wine vault was this under-treasured place! And I was surprised to hear my superiors laugh and chat by the influence which the wine they drank out of large, long glasses, produced. They were merry indeed, and very sly in their regality, as they sate on the upturned yats and smoked each other; and I was reconciled to my doom, when I learnt that I was filled with port wine of the same quality which kept them so cheerful. Thus, in company with many dozens of the like kindred, I was destined to lie, till, like an old coin, I should become incrusted, and this happened to exceed the space of seven years. - Surely, it was a happy release of apprenticeship when I was, one morning, raised out of the civic cellar, by a notorious wine-taster that frequently swallowed more than he purchased. As a little one of the "very particular," without being then opened, I was conveyed to his house, for the good of a love-sick young lady visiting there, and a mixture of bark was suggested, but abandoned. The corkscrew, like that of an inquisitor, or a twinge of the gout, pierced my cork-head, and forth the life-blood bubbled into a decanter held gingerly by an elderly, abstemious looking maiden aunt, that kept the cellar keys and her brother's bachelor house in trim order. "Now, my dear Letty!" said she, as she gurgled the beads round the surface of the wine-glass, and giving it her niece to drink, she took another herself, with a prudish sip. At this interim, the young huzzar officer who had made such an impression on Letitia's heart entered, and joined in the draught. I was removed, and, sans ceremonie, turned heels uppermost, and suspended by my neck in a gloomy bottle-rack, with quarts and pints and other "fragments dire." To be brief in detail, I suffered many ups and downs - shaken even to the rattles with noisy shot, and drenched to the skin with filtering water, and rubbed to my vitals with a bristling brushfilled with coffin-oil-at another with sand. Sold at one time to a bottlemerchant-found at another time with a candle in a chum-room in the Bench. Like a lying-in lady, I was often ham pered in the straw, and made a great litter about me. Strung by the neck, and carried by a charity boy into the fields for holding tittlebats,—then exchanged for marbles, and riding in an old woman's pocket into jail, to administer comfort to her condemned son. Indeed I had many hairbreadth escapes, changes and chances-" one bottle, in his time, plays many parts." I was picked up in haste at "Wapping Old Stairs," and a jolly captain, for want of a better, made me his temporary pocket-pistol, with a pint of what he called the "real." When arrived in the "Gulf of Florida," and my last drop was shed into his gulp, he stopped me with the latitude and longitude, and dropped me into the gigantic arms of the ocean-" May we ne'er want a friend, nor a bottle to give him." After having been driven by wind and wave, and passing, like Jonah, three days and nights in the carcase of a whale, I was relieved by a Greenlander, who discovering me in his anatomical process, and considering me a supernatural water spirit of the blue bottle genera, flung me, fearfully, into the sea again; where I wandered to and fro till picked up on the Sussex coast by a smuggler. Taking a fancy to me, he withdrew my paper contents, and singing "All's well!" on perusing them, buoyed me even to chocking with 66 pure spirit," which ever and anon he drank. By my assistance, in the dark seas, he felt an enthusiastic vein of fortitude. Becoming a companion with him, I was no sooner emptied than replenished. Even his wife and children sought his jerkin pocket to take a draught, when seated jollily smoking by the evening fire-the blast assailing every reachable object very uncourteously. I well remember the hollow night, as I lay dozing with this family, that the preventive service men entered the illicit hut, and drawing their cutlasses terrified the indwellers, but captured them not without the sternest resistance, for their surly and lion-like mastiff took the largest share in the conflict: he strode to one of the officers' necks, and gnarling his throat, pinned him down till he ceased to breathe. Another officer drew his pistol and shot the dog. The smuggler was brought to justice. With other things about his person, I was condemned, but afterwards given to a poor Irishwoman travelling to London. Like Mount Etna, or Vesuvius, I held the crater-and was left, in part 66 for lodging, at St. Giles's. Being in another's employ, I ran a varied muck, -often under a washing-woman's apron to the corner house"-for geneva, rum, whiskey, peppermint, or shrub. More than once I held eye-water, vine gar, table-beer, capers. Once I witnessed a fight in a prize ring, and was the Fidus Ascates of the bottle-holder, a famous fellow for "black strap;" and many a drop did I shed on the champion's puffed eyelid, after the lance had slit it into steaked slices. ness. The wine merchant sent me with an appearance of age (and it is true, I did begin to be really old in some respects,) to an innkeeper's in Woolwich, which drew my end nearer than any of my former employments. A party of watermen met to celebrate a Regatta. Drinking several bottles dry-the last -a little one-was called up for a parting. It was my turn-I obeyedand like a youth in the militia, I was drawn up for a substitute. On the intoxicated party leaving the house, one of them in bravado, tossed me in the air. I fell on a glass conservatory with a tremendous crash. My career was thus abruptly and dishonourably closed, not having wilfully offended any one, To many I gave the Elixir of Life-the Balm of Gilead. To others, I contributed, unconsciously, to hasten their ruin, representing too truly, Farquhar's Comedy of "Love in a Bottle." But as I was only glass, and to glass I am returned, may all gather a "Mysterie and Moralitie" by my bitterness, and be assured that I shall, like them, be gathered to my fathers; and, whatever liquors my successors may contain, let it be remembered, they will be for the use, and not abuse, of the living. At this moment, an ingenious urchin is imitating the voice of a jackdaw with horsehair drawn across my 66 neck," and my "extremities" are stuck on a high wall, surrounding the very spot in which my beauty was slain, to ward off the limbs of climbing marauders, with the following notice placed just above me on a board,"Steel traps and spring guns set here." Would this not be a practical motto for a bottle, by way of caution to "Dram Drinkers?" This brought me into the society of a Tattersall better-a good natured soul, with a bottle nose, and I rested for a long period. Falling off his favourite filly when coursing, he came in first at the death. His stock was submitted to the hammer; I was purchased, with others, by a clergyman, and received another respite in his cellar. His lady, as all ladies should be, was very benevolent, and spent much of her time and money in usefulness. A poor woman in the village lay sick of a fever; the médical attendant prescribed wine to her succour. This was for me an opportune visit. I recollect the kindhearted lady, with tears of compassion, laid me gently in a basket, and like a ministering angel stepped into the room of the dying woman. This was an affecting scene. The spectre-looking, but mild creature was bolstered recumbently in her bed; her weeping children, of both sexes, were sitting and kneeling round her; her husband, old and grey, in a retired part of the room, leaned on the table, with a book before him, in an anxious praying attitude. The good Samaritan lady, after half filling the glass, offered to the patient's lips the liquid, but, alas! the blessing arrived too late,-strength departed-peace was at hand, and silence crowned the What corpse in solemn radiancy. portion that remained in me was drank at the funeral. Put into the cupboard as an evidence of kindness, I was shortly filled with cream and presented at the vicarage; then, forwarded to town with "mixed pickle," accompanied by a relation with a much larger mouth, in whose society I nearly lost Serjeant Thin was stern and tall, my life by the carelessness of a cat.My rare delicacies were soon devoured -and a youth appointed me his bottle companion to hold his horse-leeches. But, on his returning to college, they He did not die as a soldier should, were released. I was once more racked and chosen with the rest of my tribe to pass the "cork harbour," and with "Old Port," I retired into quiet dark P. THE FATE OF SERJEANT THIN. A man of a desperate courage was he, Than in all the mess-room revelry; And he carried his head with a wonderful air; Smiting a foe with sword in band- bland; He just had fasten'd his sabre tash, When he choked on a hair of his own mustache. Sorely surprised was he to find That his life thus hung on a single hair; bear: Or had he heen eating a cartload of trash,- The news flew quickly along the ranks, It seem'd the oddest of all Death's pranks. They buried poor Thin when the sun went down, His cap and his sword on the coffin lay; But many a one from the neighbouring town Came smilingly up to the sad array, For they said with a laughter they could not quash, That he choked on a hair of his own mustache! Now every gallant and gay hussar, torical deduction, to represent the coronation of the English queen as an acknowledgement of a right of succession in her issue, and as "a recognition of her constitutional character us essential as that of the monarch himself." Of these doctrines, however, a sufficient refutation may be derived from the following obvious considerations: 1st, that the observance or omission of this coronation never was or could be held to influence the right of inheritance of the legitimate issue of a royal marriage. 2dly, the coronation of the king is essential inasmuch as it is a political act. In that of the queen, however, no such character can be discovered: no consent is asked from the people as to the person to be crowned; no conditions are required from her; no oath is adminis Take warning by this most mournful tale,- tered; no homage or allegiance is of It is not only bullet or scar That may your elegant form assail,- You may choke on a hair of your own mustache. THE CORONATION OF QUEENS. As to the title Queen, it may be observed that the word signifies merely a wife or woman, yet it hath come by eminency to denote the wife only of a king. Thus in old authorities we find this expression -"the king's queen ;” though the title hath long been used absolutely in its present sense, and as synonymous with the Latin regina, the customary designation of our queens in that language. The Teutonic tribes from whom we descend entertained a laudable respect for the character of their women, and the wife of the chieftain shared the rank and honours of her husband. But the primitive form of the creation of kings was too much devoid of "gentle usage and soft delicacy" to be participated by their consorts; and it was not till after the ceremonies of unction and coronation were adopted that these could be publicly initiated in the honours of royalty. The coronation of queens, however, though performed with the same solemnity as that of kings, is not to be regarded in the same political view, or to be considered as of the same importance. Its object is to confer a sanctity of character on her who is the wife and the mother of kings, and to admit her to the honours of her exalted station. An attempt hath been made in a late anonymous pamphlet, which abounds more in gratuitous reasoning than his fered. The queen's coronation, though performed at the same place, and usually on the same day with that of the sovereign, is a subsequent and distinct solemnity; it proceeds from the king, and is granted to his consort for the honour of the kingly office. Among the Romans the wife of their emperor had the title Augusta, which was always conferred with some ceremonies, and latterly by that of coronation. In Germany the empress is both crowned and anointed. The same honour is now common to the wives of European sovereigns. Those of France are not crowned with the kings, but at the abbey of St. Denis, near Paris. The consorts of our English princes have been graced with "all the royal makings of a queen" from very early times. Before the Conquest they were anointed and crowned, and sate with the kings in seats of state. Ethelwulf, king of the West-Saxons, returning from Rome in the year 856, received in marriage Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, king of France, who was at the same time crowned and anointed as his queen by Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims. These ceremonies, as applied to the royal consort, were probably unknown at that time to the court of Wessex; and the performance of them has been thought to have increased the displeasure which arose on the marriage. She was also placed on the royal seat, by the king's side, and received the title of queen; honours which had been withheld from the wives of the West-Saxon kings on account of the demerits of Eadburga, wife of King Brightric. If an exaggerated degree of veneration was accorded, by the ancient Greeks, to musicians as men, we, perhaps, are too prone to consider them more in their professional than their personal character. No son of song ever yet acquired fame or honour in his art, without possessing an enthusiasm which, though chiefly directed to musical science, could not fail to tinge his thoughts and actions on points unconnected with harmony. Braham rather regales his mind upon the recollections of royalty than the reminiscences of popular applause; Catalini muses less on her miracles of voice than on the compliments of the soldier Swede; and poor Charley Dignum's glee was but the consequence and product of mockturtle and malmsey-madeira. It might be difficult to define in what manner "the concord of sweet sounds" operates on the moral character of him whom they inspire; yet it will be assented to, that musical taste often wars with the ordinary pursuits of life, and induces apathy in the common concerns of active society:- and it is a freedom from the cares and anxieties of the world, thus produced, which has assured longevity to singers in a number of remarkable instances, little as their avocations would seem favourable to advanced age. Mara, after the interval of half a cenIt is but a few years since Madame tury, re-appeared upon the London boards, undoubtedly with diminished powers of execution, but with all the taste and enthusiasm for the art that she possessed when she enchanted a by-gone generation. She was then more aged than the oldest of her admirers; - on the scene of her early glories, where once the proud and the influential struggled for her notice, and with all the deceitful reminiscences of her former fame alive in her mind, she found herself alone-a stranger in the assembly; the walls had lost their echo, and the mute respect with which the audience listened to her later accents, elo quently told her what she had been, and what she was. She wept bitterly at the wholesome but humbling lesson. Barbarini, once so celebrated as a singer, was discovered but last year, by a traveller, still living, in a retired town of Russia; where, at the age of 106, he was in the active performance of the homely duties of a lowly inkeeper at Voronage, and notwithstanding his weight of years, walked daily a league and a half for the benefit of his health; each evening reverting to his guitar, and singing the songs of his fair Italy with a feeble voice. Court-favour failed him, and, reduced to poverty, he was obliged to seek subsistence by manual labour in that distasteful clime. Catarina Gabrieli, who had been in her infant years the companion of poor Barbarini, who had shared with him the best of his fame (being his junior by five years only), and whose musical talent was the boast of her native Italy, also still survives. She is upwards of 100. But, two years since, she could delight her friends by evidence of yet extraordinary powers. In the meridian of her renown the most splendid offers were made her to proceed to foreign shores, and from London golden arguments were profusely lavished to induce her to visit us. "I can never do there as I like," was the honest answer of the celebrated cantatrice. "If I do not chuse to sing I shall be insulted.--No! |